Some New Zealand supermarkets are rationing baby milk powder because Chinese immigrants are buying large quantities to sell online to China, following the 2008 tainted milk scandal that killed six infants and sickened up to 300,000. Customers at the Foodtown, Woolworths and Countdown chains are being limited to four cans of baby formula at a time, a spokeswoman for parent company Progressive Enterprises told Saturday's New Zealand Herald.

"It's pretty much a response to unfairness that we had with a lot of people stockpiling baby formula and selling it overseas," she said. "We appreciate why people are doing it, but our supply is for the domestic market." The powder is apparently being sold online to Chinese parents who are still reluctant to give local baby formula to their children after the 2008 scandal, in which toxic industrial melamine was put into milk powder to raise its protein content. Taobao.com, a Chinese online trading website, is carrying more than 50 advertisements for New Zealand-made Karicare baby formula, the paper reported.

Copyright Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 2010